I believe this is something that should not even be possible (on any difficulty other than the beginner’s), however, this game has been terribly powercrept to an extreme degree. Most enemies in the game are unable to present a significant threat resembling anything that could force you to respect them (in the FG sense). In a 4 player setting, any challenge in the normal difficulties has been minimized so much as to make the game quite boring to play even though the game is intended to be a 4 player co-op game.
The game’s existing mechanics and player power have changed a lot since launch and even moreso compared to previous Tide games. And almost every other Darktide patch has been almost exclusively buffs to player power that over time has resulted in all enemy power being weakened and trivialized. I know it’s unlikely for Fatshark to even attempt to appeal to my desire for this game. At the very least I’d like for Darktide to have 2 additional difficulties added beyond Auric. Please let us have this at least, I want to the game to have difficulties that strongly enforce a 4 player group to work together to overcome the enemies they face instead of the current state where I can basically play a singleplayer game next to some strangers.
If I may write my ideal scenario: I would want to the game to drastically change so as to make every enemy type in the game a unique threat necessitating a different response for each enemy in moment-to-moment gameplay. I want for the presence of a single elite in a horde to be strong enough that I’m forced to respect them with the horde around them if I’m without team mates to help. With Darktide being a 4 player co-op game, it needs to be stated that player power increases exponentially with the number of players and that the danger of the enemies should be built with that in mind, too much of Darktide currently has accommodated the player’s ability to handle everything by themselves.
Some of my specific wants (I accidentally pressed enter and posted this too early before I finished my thoughts, why does pressing enter post?):
Getting hit should be important and carry consequence. This could be done by significantly nerfing different sources of toughness replenishment and increasing enemy damage.
Player mobility nerfed significantly, both dodging and sprinting. Disengaging enemies for long periods should be difficult and should necessitate use of other defensive mechanics such as stagger & block.
Enemy presence and armor should matter, players should not be able to just mash left-click through mixed hordes w/ elites. Addressing this is very complicated and would require at least nerfing player tools such as infinite cleave, rending/brittleness, blessings and adjusting cleave, mass & ADM values.
Nerf high damage player tools to require more investment to create a noticeable & felt opportunity cost, killing specific enemies fast should cost you. You shouldn’t be able to do everything by yourself.
But in the end, I’ll still be glad if Fatshark adds some new difficulties to the game instead of all this extra work making huge changes to the core game. I know this stuff is unrealistic.
It was torture at first but I reiterated on my build 2 times to adjust after which it became somewhat easy. I first tried for like 10+ attempts or so on Hab Dreyko, unfortunately the end event was impossible to do true solo while blind & deaf but at least I was able to consistent reach the end event after tweaking my build. Doing Archivum Sycorax only took 5-6 attempts and less than 2 hours.
I realize I forgot to include my build and game’s scoreboard so here’s the online scoreboard link for it.
Had a realization during a VT2 CW run the other day when I got Execute as a random boon for the first boon of the run. Having that plus stagger THP allowed me to play VT like you can play DT, basically ignore enemy attacks with the exception of certain elites and just unga bunga because you can hit trade and never “lose” health. Every single tree in DT just gives you the option to load in with the equivalent of the first row of THP talents selected on every build. Add in a bunch of TDR/DR, the fact that Toughness works like Gromril’s at 100%, increased mobility, weaker specials, and it’s no wonder that the game is just 4 solo players playing in the same lobby rather than a 4 player coop game.
And what kind of things do we get to make the game more cooperative? Decided hop back on DT to try Endless Hordes and in the one game I played there was a smyker and an Arc Rifle Skitarii just nuking everything. Very cool intended interaction. Just absurdly unfun for everyone else.
Anyway, I agree that making changes to the core game that would address all this is pretty unlikely. I really don’t get the vibe that there is much appetite in FS to continuously build out the runway for the most time invested players nor mostly remake VT2 gameplay in DT and this makes a degree of sense. Of all the solutions, making Auric 2/Challenge 6 is most appealing: Havoc already exists and just snapshotting some Havoc level e.g. 30 and removing some of the player constraints to keep it more casual/QP friendly seems straightforward in theory. It would be an easy win that would squeeze a bit more life out of the game for some folks.
Regardless of how they accomplish it, I hope it’s addressed because I’ve never been so disinterested in playing this game.
Counter thought. I remember a Warhammer 40k book talking about naysmiths. This isn’t to say I disagree at all. I had a similar experience last night. I picked up ogryn to finish that heavy hitter penance, made up some wonky build and felt like a walk simulator. I walked through the entire level just spamming nothing but heavies.
"Naysmiths are a rank within the Chapter of the Iron Hands, similar to the rank of Lieutenant in other Space Marine Chapters.
Naysmiths play a significant role in the Chapter as an advisors, questioning their Captain’s strategic plans so as to probe for human errors within his strict logic."
What if you’re in the tiny minority here and difficulty is at a mostly comfortable place place for the majority for auric? I pugged skitarii on auric until I finished all of my penances. Anecdotal but I only saw 2 other level 40 havoc player that whole time.
When I leveled my skitarii they allowed me to queue in for aurics at 25. Wouldn’t that imply that auric isn’t intended to be a final difficulty level and havoc is? Maybe you’re misinterpreting the intent of auric.
What if you’re at a skill level that is allowing you to do things others can’t? People do blind playthroughs of dark souls games etc. The video doesn’t exactly have you blind you were using tag often to allow you vision. Your game knowledge of the level allows you to find your way. For you it’s likely a goofy challenge because you know the layout well enough. (For me this is just an argument that fat shark needs to imo lent some randomization to map pathing)
You chose a map and build that allowed for this solo. Isn’t that more condemnation of those than the rest of the game? Do you think you could have pulled it off as a heavy sword shredder autopistol psyker.
We’re unable to surely say either way, it could be that people who find Auric boring play it less or don’t play it at all so of course those who remain to play it find Auric good for them. I think the participation bias is relevant here.
Havoc is a ranked gamemode, it is not a game difficulty. It is impossible to engage with it as you would the rest of the video game and there is little to no choice involved in how you’re able to engage with it. It presents me with no agency in how I want to play the video game so as far as I’m concerned, Havoc does not deserve to be acknowledged as a difficulty option because it is not.
The point is that the game’s core mechanics and continued powercreep create this possibility when I believe it should not be possible regardless of one’s skill level. Literally blindly swinging your weapon around should not reward you a win on the highest game difficulty.
Then you’re at odds with the developer’s vision for their game, based on my perception. The barrier to entry for auric is 25. You and I likely I agree that it should be 30 and auric should be difficult enough that damnation is considered the couch coop difficulty for the masses.
At 25 you’re still missing 5 talent points, that is a huge amount.
The fact the developers are saying "yeah man, this difficulty should be doable despite the fact you’re missing 1/6th of your kit and don’t have maxed out gear is pretty telling.
I do not disagree with your premise save to say that your skill level is likely creating a bias. I think your point stands in regards to powercreep having gone too far
Isn’t the 25 limit only true if you’ve got multiple classes already at 30 and you win all your games on whatever class you’re leveling up? I don’t think it’s like that fresh out the box for players. There is also nothing preventing you from joining a friend and playing Auric at level 1. Surely that doesn’t communicate anything about developer intention.
